As an alternative to Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) systems, a recent development is the wide spread use of Voice over IP (VOIP) telephony, which uses internet protocol over wired and wireless networks. With the availability of diverse types of communication networks and devices capable of taking advantage of various features of these networks, a new technology is bringing different communication networks together providing until now unavailable functionality such as combining various modes of communication (e.g. instant messaging, voice calls, video communications, etc.). This technology is referred to as unified communications (UC). A network of servers manages end devices capable of handling a wide range of functionality and communication while facilitating communications between the more modern unified communication network devices and other networks (e.g. PSTN, cellular, etc.).
One of the key value propositions of Unified Communications is enabling the use of the PC as a phone for real time communications (soft phone). A significant inhibitor to the successful adoption of the PC as a soft phone is the availability of a good quality PC audio peripheral, which is able to provide the functionality of the desk phone it replaces. A number of peripherals have been introduced, such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices. These peripherals provide the ability to control the call from the peripheral without needing to interact with the PC user interface, which may be locked and not readily visible to the user at the time of a call. Control commands are, however, currently limited to the number of buttons provided by the peripheral.